“The world is full of rumours, but they’re not all true,” said Mourinho on Thursday. “Regarding my future, we’ll see what happens at the end of the season. Contracts aren’t the most important thing in football. If all the parties are happy at the end of a campaign, they remain together. If they aren’t, they don’t.”

Earlier, Valdano had played down the rumours of a disagreement. He said: “There are no problems between Mourinho and I. He is our coach, the man who must lead us to triumph, and the team is proving to be very competitive under him.

“It’s all about being better each season and we are better now than we were in the previous campaign. We expect to keep this up.”

Mourinho has been looking to sign an additional striker in January to replace Gonzalo HiguaÃƒÂ­n after the Argentine was ruled out for most of the season with a back injury that required surgery.